Chapter 6 Medieval British Society, 1066–1485 - Lyceum Books

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116 Part II Norman Britain and some were even abandoned. Although the Black Death is always regarded as a tragedy, it did reduce a population that must have strained England’s resources. There are good reasons for believing that the standard of living for working people rose between 1350 and 1485. The only really large city was London. Its population in 1300 has been estimated at thirty to forty thousand. If these fi gures are correct, medieval London was no larger than Roman London at its peak, but the number of inhabitants had declined severely during the earlier Middle Ages. York, the most important city in northern England, probably had about ten thousand residents in 1300. Flourishing ports like Norwich and Bristol may have boasted populations of fi ve thousand each. Most other towns, even those that were county seats and trading centers, had fewer than three thousand inhabitants during the Middle Ages. Comparison with modern towns of this size will help one appreciate how small they were. Social Structure: The Peasants Although medieval men and women did not use modern terminology in describing social classes, they were familiar with the concept of order and degree. Medieval society was clearly stratifi ed, with the king at the top, then feudal magnates or members of the nobility, followed by lords of manors, merchants, and clergy, all resting on the large, solid base of the peasantry. The interlocking relationships between these groups were ratifi ed by the feudal concept of homage and fealty, by the manorial custom of villeinage, and by the church, which preached the importance of each member of society performing the appropriate services so that the whole body politic might fl ourish. Historians have often used the pyramid as a symbol or model of medieval society, mainly because its tapering form emphasizes the large number of laborers at the bottom and the fact that each higher group was smaller than the one below it, until fi nally the monarch occupied the highest pinnacle in solitary eminence. Another useful image is that of the Great Chain of Being, in which everything in the universe is arranged in a vertical, hierarchical line or chain with God at the top, followed by the angels and saints, humankind, animals, plants, and rocks. The human category was divided into the Three Orders, or Estates. As medieval society viewed it, the First Estate was “those who pray” (the clergy), the Second Estate “those who fi ght” (the nobility), and the Third Estate “those who work” (the peasants). As town life developed in the twelfth century and thereafter, these simple categories began to break down with the addition of merchants, guildsmen, scholars, and so forth. But the image of the chain endured—each link necessary but unchanging in its hierarchical relationship to the others. The agricultural workers who formed the bulk of English society were legally separated into two groups, the free and the unfree. Those who were unfree were not slaves, but as villeins or serfs they were bound to remain on the manors where they had been born, performing compulsory labor services in exchange for modest housing and minimal amounts of land. They needed their lord’s permission to marry and to educate their children. Unless he agreed, they could not move to cities or other
manors or enter religious orders. They were not legally free to buy, sell, or bequeath land or other property. Indeed they had no legal rights in the royal system of Common Law; disputes were to be settled by the lord of the manor. Free peasants did have access to the law. They were able to move, buy and sell land, and manage their own affairs largely as they chose, but their economic conditions were not necessarily much better than those of the villeins. The Domesday Book suggests that most manors had both free and unfree tenants, but there was some regional variation, and not all estates fi t a single pattern. During the later Middle Ages the status of the peasants became more complex; a great variety of specifi c conditions applied in individual cases. In particular, it became more common for villeins to “buy out” their disabilities, so that in exchange for a money payment they were permitted to move, alienate land, or send sons away to school or to monasteries. The blurring of the line separating villeins and the freeborn is emphasized by the frequency of intermarriage between the two groups. Peasant families were generally nuclear units composed only of a husband, wife, and unmarried children; it was rare for extended families including several generations to live together. It used to be believed that marriage was generally delayed until the couple had an assured livelihood, most often through inheritance of land following the death of parents. Recent studies, however, suggest that this was not the case, at least in the later Middle Ages. Couples most often married in their early twenties, or even (following the Black Death, which opened up new opportunities) in their late teens. As many as 94 percent of the peasant farmers were married. Their households were small, usually including between one and three children. Although some form of birth control may have been practiced, infant mortality probably played a more signifi cant role in keeping down the size of families. The average life expectancy was no more than thirty- three years, and (in contrast to the situation in the early twenty- fi rst century) only 10 percent of the population was over fi fty, although some people did live into their eighties or nineties. Because of their short life spans, most medieval men and women spent the majority of their lives unwed, either single or widowed; the average marriage lasted little longer than a dozen years. A recent writer has described these marriages as economic and emotional partnerships— fl exible institutions that worked to the benefi t of both husband and wife. It was during the Middle Ages that the use of family names became common in England. Many surnames were derived from occupations. Examples, which tell us a good deal about the major medieval crafts and trades, are Miller, Baker, Brewer, Butcher, Shepherd, Carpenter, Thatcher, Smith, Taylor, Weaver, Wheeler, Franklin (a freeman), and Fuller (one who “fulls” cloth, to improve its texture following weaving). Social Structure: The Aristocracy and Middling Groups Chapter 6 Medieval British Society, 1066–1485 117 The upper groups in society—we may term them the aristocracy—became more clearly differentiated in the fourteenth and fi fteenth centuries. Earlier, the
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Chapter 6 Medieval British Society, 1066–1485 - Lyceum Books

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